SQL Server Cyrillic Writing '?????' - sql-server

I am running a SQL Server 2008 R2 and I have a database containing multilingual words.
For Cyrillic words I only see '???????'
The data type is nvarchar(255), the collection is SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS (which was my default)
I have no idea what else can I do, any idea??

When you add data to the nvarchar column, use the prefix N
Insert into table(nvarchar_col)
select N'your Cyrillic words'

Related

German Umlaut hash - SHA256 on SQL server

I am facing a problem when applying SHA256 hash to German Umlaut Characters.
--Without Umlaut
SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), HASHBYTES('SHA2_256','o'), 2) as HASH_ID
Sql server Output 65C74C15A686187BB6BBF9958F494FC6B80068034A659A9AD44991B08C58F2D2
This is matching to the output in
https://www.pelock.com/products/hash-calculator
--With Umlaut
SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), HASHBYTES('SHA2_256','ö'), 2)
Sql server Output B0B2988B6BBE724BACDA5E9E524736DE0BC7DAE41C46B4213C50E1D35D4E5F13
Output from pelock: 6DBD11FD012E225B28A5D94A9B432BC491344F3E92158661BE2AE5AE2B8B1AD8
I want the SQL server output to match to pelock. I have tested outputs from other sources (Snowflake and python) and all of it aligns with output from pelock. Not sure why SQL server is not giving the right result. Any help is much appreciated.
You have two issues:
The literal text itself is being reinterpreted, because you have the wrong database collation. You can use the N prefix to prevent that, but this leads to a second problem...
The value from pelock is UTF-8, but using N means it will be UTF-16 nvarchar.
So you need to use a UTF-8 binary collation, the N prefix and cast it back to varchar.
SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), HASHBYTES('SHA2_256',CAST(N'ö' COLLATE Latin1_General_100_BIN2_UTF8 AS varchar(100))), 2)
Result
6DBD11FD012E225B28A5D94A9B432BC491344F3E92158661BE2AE5AE2B8B1AD8
db<>fiddle
UTF-8 collations are only supported in SQL Server 2019 and later. In older version you would need to find a different collation that deals with the characters you have. It may not be possible to find a collation that deals with all of your data.

DB collation VS Column collation when INSERTing

I've create 2 demo DB's.
Server Collation - Hebrew_CI_AS
DB1 Collation - Hebrew_CI_AS
DB2 Collation - Latin1_General_CS_AS.
In DB2 I have one column with Hebrew_CI_AS Collation. I'm trying to insert Hebrew text into that column. The Datatype is nvarchar(250).
This is the sample script:
INSERT INTO [Table] (HebCol)
VALUES('1בדיקה')
When I run this on DB1, everything works fine.
On DB2, Although the column has Hebrew Collation, I get question marks instead of the Hebrew text.
Why is the result different if the collation is identical?
P.S: I cannot add N before the text. In the real world an app is doing the inserts.
When using literal strings the collation used is that of the database, not the destination column. As the collation of the database you are inserting into is Latin1_General_CS_AS then for the literal string '1בדיקה' most of the characters are outside of the code page of the collation; thus you get ? for those characters as they are unknown.
As such there are only 2 solutions to stop the ? appearing in the column:
Fix your application and define your literal string(s) as an nvarchar not a varchar; you are after all storing an nvarchar so it makes sense to pass a literal nvarchar.
Change the collation of your database to be the same as your other database, Hebrew_CI_AS.
Technically there is a 3rd, which is use a UTF-8 collation if you are on SQL Server 2019, but such collations come with caveats that I don't think are in scope of this question.

Inserting Unicode character using asp.net mvc

I have a database field with nVarchar(30). I am using asp.net MVC. When i insert the record in Unicode, i get ?????.
Any one can tell me how can i convert a string to unicode and insert into database.
I am using SQL Server 2008 R2.
Try to change your database collation to Latin1_General_BIN2.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175835.aspx
Make sure:
You Use N' at the start of string literals containing such strings, e.g. N'enović'
If you want to query and ignore accents, then you can add a COLLATE clause to your select. E.g.:
SELECT * FROM Account
WHERE Name = 'enovic' COLLATE Latin1_General_CI_AI

2 different collations conflict when merging tables with Sql Server?

I have DB1 which has a Hebrew collation
I also have DB2 which has latin general collation.
I was asked to merge a table (write a query) between DB1.dbo.tbl1 and DB2.dbo.tbl2
I could write in the wuqery
insert into ...SELECT Col1 COLLATE Latin1_General_CI_AS...
But I'm sick of doing it.
I want to make both dbs/tables to the same collation so I don't have to write every time COLLATE...
The question is -
Should I convert latin->hebrew or Hebrew->latin ?
we need to store everything from everything. ( and all our text column are nvarachr(x))
And if so , How do I do it.
If you are using Unicode data types in resulted database - nvarchar(x), then you are to omit COLLATE in INSERT. SQL Server will convert data from your source collation to Unicode automatically. So you should not convert anything if you are inserting to nvarchar column.

Allow special characters SQL Server 2008

I am using SQL Server 2008 express edition and its collation settings are set to default.I wish to store special characeters like á ,â ,ã ,å ,ā ,ă ,ą ,ǻ in my database but it converts them into normal characters like 'a'. How can I stop SQL Server from doing so?
Make sure that your columns are using the type nvarchar(...), rather than varchar(...). The former is Unicode, the latter is ASCII.
Also, make sure that your database default collation is set to Accent Sensitive, and that your columns are stored that way. You may also want to check your instance default collation, as that affects the default collation for your system databases, particularly tempdb.
Rahul, here is a very simple query that runs perfectly on SQL 2005 and 2008:
Query
DECLARE #t1 TABLE (
Col1 nvarchar(30)
)
INSERT INTO #t1 VALUES (N'á ,â ,ã ,å ,ā ,ă ,ą ,ǻ')
SELECT * FROM #t1
Result
Col1
------------------------------
á ,â ,ã ,å ,ā ,ă ,ą ,ǻ
There is nothing special here. No collation change from default, just a simple NVARCHAR column.
You said you are "just running direct queries in the database". Can you try this query and see if you get the same results?

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